Celebrating the Last 12 month’s of hobby output is an annual tradition here at Tale of Painters. I’m going to take a look back through the year and share what I managed to paint and how many of my 2020 hobby resolutions I succeeded in completing. I’ll also share my 2021 resolutions.

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Last year I wrote this list for my hobby resolutions:

  • Expand my Dark Angels from 2300pts to 3500pts
  • Expand my Stormcast from 2400pts to 3500pts
  • Paint at least 5 warbands for Underworlds
  • Finish the Chaos half of Shadowspear
  • Start a new army

So how did I do? Well I haven’t painted enough Dark Angels to reach 3500pts. I haven’t painted any Stormcast at all. I only painted 2 Underworlds Warbands. I didn’t paint any Chaos Space Marines. I did start two new armies though (Necrons and Daemons). It was definitely more failure than success. So read on to see how I went off the rails and what I did instead.

I started the year off by finishing a couple of Warhammer Underworld’s warbands for the Tale pf Painters’ Tale of Tuesdays community posts. The Skaven were quick to paint with contrast paints and I really had fun with the Skeletor inspired Nighhaunt.

I got bit by the Warcry bug pretty hard in February and with Monsters and Mercenaries recently released I added to my warband with more Iron Golems, a Chaos Sorcerer, a Darkoath Warqueen and the Chimera.

When March happened I think I was having a blip and not really sure what I wanted to paint so I tried something new with this Genestealer Patriarch which later went on to be the inspiration for my first Warhammer Community article. I ended up settling on a Start Collecting Slaves to Darkness set instead.

In the last couple of months, I’d been playing more Warcry and it really helped me focus on what I wanted to paint. More Chaos models in the form of a Chaos Lord on Karkadrak and an Ogroid Myrmidon for Warcry. Things were starting to formulate into a plan and the warbands were expanding into an Age of Sigmar sized army. I got to write about this in a second article for Warhammer Community. You can read that here.

During May, Games Workshop released the limited edition Lieutenant as a web online exclusive and I ordered one. When he arrived he didn’t really give me Dark Angel vibes, so I asked Twitter what chapter I should paint it. White Dwarf’s Matt Hutson replied saying the White Dwarf Chapter the Tome Keepers. I thought it was a great idea. What made this even more fun was Lyle Lowry the Editor said send it in to the Magazine and it was included in November’s issue. I also finished my Marauder Horsemen in May.

June was a great month. I finished off the Slaves to Darkness Start collecting set with an additional five Chaos Knights. This rounded out and completed my 2000pt Slaves to Darkness Ravager Army, the timing was perfect because Games Workshop sent me a review copy of Indomitus around three weeks before it was released. I dived into this amazing box set and painted the Royal Warden, Plasmancer, Overlord and Deathwing Lieutenant straight away.

The Indomitus party continued in July with a Necron Painting Tutorial and more Character painting. This time I finished the Skorpekh Lord, Bladeguard Ancient, Judiciar and two Cryptothralls. I was honoured to be included in two Warhammer Community articles during June: Necrons Painted by the Experts and Indomitus Space Marines Painted by the Experts.

After two solid month’s of painting Indomitus I was ready to reintroduce some of my Warcry projects into my work flow. To do this I decided to do a weekly project rotation and it worked really well. During August I shared a Canoptek Reanimator, Deathwing Captain, Azyrite Ruins, Wyldwoods, Khorne Daemons Warcry Warband and a Dark Angels Chaplain. I made a tutorial for the fiery blades of the Khorne Bloodletters. Stahly and I also collaborated on a really fun post where we compared First Born and Primaris Chaplains in a VS post.

Games Workshop kindly sent me a C’tan Shard of the Void Dragon in September but I wasn’t allowed to share it until October, so more on that in a bit. The rest of the month was spent painting the Primal Lair Beastgrave terrain which I had bought earlier on in the year purely because I just thought it looked amazing. I also painted Bladeguard Veterans in Deathwing colours and got inundated with Facebook comments that they don’t have the Deathwing keyword (don’t care, it’s my hobby) and finally I finished the Bloodletters and Flesh Hounds to give me legal sized units in Age of Sigmar.

In the previous paragraph I mentioned the C’Tan Shard, well Games Workshop had sent these out to a bunch of people around 6 weeks before they were released so they could paint them up and Warhammer Community could share them on their blog. It was fascinating to see so many amazing takes and once again I was honoured to be included. October saw me paint some elite units from Indomitus in the form of Skorpekh Destroyers and Dark Angel Eradicators and I started my next Warcry Warband which is Slaanesh Daemons.

I started the month by painting the Dominion of Sigmar Statue that came with issue 34 of the Mortal Realms Partworks Magazine. I was lucky enough to get a review sample of Warcry Catacombs and I did a deep dive review on the box. I then spent the next 5 weeks painting the entire thing. I managed to paint the Dungeon terrain and Overground terrain as well as the Scions of the Flame in November. I also managed to finish off my Armies on Parade board and photograph it. More on that at the end. My writing prowess wasn’t just limited to Warhammer Community this year, I also wrote my first article for White Dwarf. I’ve been featured in White Dwarf for the past 9 years but this was my first time writing and to make it even more special the article was about my photography so I shot the article too! It’s one of my favourite highlights of the year.

December is a finishing month. I like to try and complete as many projects as I can. I started off strong by posting the finished Khainite Shadowstalkers which completed the Warcry Catacombs game. I then went on to share the last of my Necrons on the blog. 20 Warriors and 6 Scarabs completed the Necron half of the Indomitus box set. Then I painted the Ravenwing Outriders. Leaving just Assault Intercessors to do. Before starting the last of the marines I finished the Bloodcrushers which have been half finished since October and finally the day before this post goes live I finished 5 Assault Intercessors. Not sure if I’ll finish the last 5 Assault Intercessors in 2020 now but I’ll give it a go. !

With the year complete I finish having painted 141 models and a whole bunch of terrain as well.

I mentioned Armies on Parade during November. Well, the idea had been forming in my head since the summer. Looking at all the models and terrain I had painted in 2020 I could easily curate it into a display board. I bought a modelling foam sheet and hacked it up into cliffs and a slope with a bread knife. I painted it as a desolate Chaos wasteland and added the models I had painted. Everything on the board had been painted since around November 2019. It was great spending a year on an army and it culminating in an awesome display board. I think It worked so well this year, I’ll do the same for 2021…

2021 hobby resolutions

Finally, it’s time to share my 2021 plans with you:

  • Finish painting the Realm of Chaos (Slaanesh vs Khorne) boxed game
  • Paint 3 Warcry Warbands (Slaanesh, Nurgle and Tzeentch Daemons).
  • Turn the 3 Warcry Warbands into an Age of Sigmar army (Legion of Chaos Ascendant).
  • Make an Armies on Parade board for Legions of Chaos Ascendant.

I had one of my best hobby years ever, let me know in the comments how your year was.

I wish everyone a great 2021.

Find my resolutions for 2019 here, 2018 here, 2017 here, 2016 here, from 2015 here, from 2014 here, from 2013 here and from 2012 here.

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